German police use a number of databases, both on the federal and national level. These databases have been criticised for collecting data beyond their legal scope, including collecting data on activists who hadn't been sentenced or tried

Schlagwort: CEPOL

The formal process of developing and implementing EU counter-terrorism law and policy begins with the heads of government, in the European Council, setting out strategic guidelines. Thereafter, the Commission produces proposals for laws and policies that are discussed by the Council of the EU (made up of government officials) and the Parliament. However, this formal task-sharing between the institutions of the EU does not say much about the power relations and impulses surrounding counter-terrorism policy. Who drives EU counter-terrorism? On the legislation of the European Union weiterlesen

At the latest since 9/11, the EU took severe changes in their home affairs policy. New agreements and institutions were created to facilitate police networking (Europol, Frontex, CEPOL, new databases and their shared access). The european „cross border crime fighting“ has become an EU framework. Providing that this should help to win a „war on terrorism“, lots of the changes follow the US model of „Homeland Security“. Risks“ should be minimized by taking more and more „proactive“ measures and foresee possible „threats“.

This includes the development of an „Homeland Security Industrial Complex“, whose budget is growing rapidly since 2001. The EU set up the research program „FP7“, that should help to find technical solutions for the discrete, but efficient surveillance and control. Both the research and the implementation of these new technologies are common projects of the security industry, military and police. This includes the usage of satellite pictures (whose resolution is now down to 50cm), drones (that are used in the EU already for catching migrants), geo-data/ mapping and several technics for border control. Satellites help to detect for example automatically deviant behaviour of vehicles (like migrants vessels). Collapsing the European security architecture weiterlesen